After Sun Jingcheng finished meeting with a client, he happened to pass by the clinic on his way back to the company. He was hungry, so he pulled over and went upstairs to find food. As soon as he went up, he asked who that person sitting in the clinic drinking tea with Sun Youping was. The person sat there silently and stiffly—didn’t look like a family relative.

Mother Sun was digging through the bottom of a trunk, looking for the old clothes her three sons used to wear. As she rummaged, she talked about how she’d wronged Eldest Son—when he was young she’d never bought him any decent good clothes. Now as she dug them out, one piece was an old police uniform, another piece was an old police uniform.

She folded the only two police uniforms neatly and carefully put them in the cabinet. Normally old police uniforms had to be returned to the unit for unified disposal—these two were probably forgotten.

“That person downstairs is a homeless man from two months ago. Your dad found him work at a construction site. He got paid yesterday and came specially today to visit your dad.” Mother Sun said listlessly, then looked at him. “Later collect all your old clothes you don’t wear and give them to me. I’ll find someone to give them to.”

“The sizes are all different—that person is much thinner than me…”

“Poor people don’t care about such things. One size bigger can still be worn.” Mother Sun said. “Have your second brother collect some too. Better than throwing away good clothes.”

“Okay.” Sun Jingcheng said. “I’ll also collect the heavy clothes later. I’ve never thrown away old clothes before either—I put them all in the neighborhood old clothes recycling box.”

“Those recycling boxes are the least reliable! I heard the good ones get picked out first, processed and sold as foreign trade clothes!” Mother Sun instructed him. “From now on, don’t put anything in those donation boxes. Collect everything and give it to me. Old shoes too.”

“Big Brother’s old police uniforms can’t be given away—they have badge numbers on them.” Sun Jingcheng reminded her.

“I know better than you.” Mother Sun looked at him. “Why did you come back instead of going to work?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Reincarnated as a starving ghost.” Mother Sun immediately put down the clothes, went to the kitchen to scoop out the thoroughly stewed meat from the pot, skillfully chopped it fine, sprinkled scallions and cilantro, and put it in a flatbread for him to eat. Then she made him a bowl of soup and asked him, “Does Mom treat you better or does your wife treat you better?”

Sun Jingcheng had learned his lesson and responded forcefully, “My mom!”

Mother Sun slapped him, knowing clearly in her heart he was just pleasing her. She teased him, “Your wife is still more important. Your wife is the one who’ll support you for a lifetime. As long as your dad treats me well, that’s enough.” Then she went back to the kitchen to chop more meat and stuffed it all into his flatbread. Then she sat down, watching him eat with satisfaction. She saw a bit of Eldest Son’s features in his face and felt her nose tingle. She casually grabbed a bag of the children’s cookies from the table, opened it to eat a piece, and chatted with him about family matters.

Sun Jingcheng said this homeless man knew proper etiquette—after getting paid, he still came to visit Sun Youping. Mother Sun agreed, “Exactly—poor or rich, there are good and bad people. Last year a relative from the countryside’s child didn’t pass the high school entrance exam, and the relative didn’t want her to attend vocational school, so she asked me to talk to your second brother about helping out at his restaurant.”

“Your second brother was also saving face, so after less than half a year he made her team leader, then supervisor, and then… hmph, she didn’t turn out well—got mixed up with an old man and became a mistress! I was so angry! Her mother even blamed your second brother, saying it was following the restaurant crowd that corrupted her!” Mother Sun was full of anger at the mention of this. “She didn’t blame her own daughter for being spineless—she blamed the restaurant? Really rare!”

“But nowadays rural kids have a hard time getting ahead. The capable ones all go to the city for school. Those left in the townships spend all day scrolling through short videos… In the past, poor kids couldn’t see the outside glamorous world and could peacefully be frogs at the bottom of a well. Now through phones they can see everything… sigh, seeing it makes them suffer more! That someone of yours teaches middle school in a township—he said the toilets are full of cigarette butts.”

“Adults are all obsessed with money, wanting good houses, good cars, good lives. Let alone these kids. Back in our time, besides being poor we had nothing else, but when one family had trouble, a hundred families helped. Now no one goes hungry anymore, everyone minds their own business, but all sorts of problems have emerged. I don’t know if this society has progressed… or regressed.”

“Last time playing mahjong, I heard someone bragging that her daughter spent fifty or sixty thousand on a bag. Oh my god, your generation is really like children—comparing whose car is fancier, whose bag is more expensive. What good does comparing do? Will heaven not take you or will illness not find you? When you’re old, won’t you still have a face full of wrinkles…” As she spoke, cookie crumbs scattered all over the table. She swept them into her palm and poured them into her mouth, saying to him, “It’s not as practical as buying a house. A house can at least be left to descendants.”

…

Mother Sun went back to the kitchen to chop meat. Sun Jingcheng was full and called out that he’d had enough. Mother Sun stuffed the meat into a flatbread, saying it was for that person downstairs to eat. Sun Jingcheng said, “What kind of thing is it to suddenly give someone a meat sandwich?”

“So what? I stewed it for several hours.” She packed up all the old clothes and had him help carry them downstairs.

Zhou Yu slept until three in the afternoon—a full eight hours. She’d never slept so thoroughly, never felt so completely comfortable throughout her body.

Before noon, Sun Jingcheng had sent a WeChat—a selfie with him and the meat sandwich: “Mom made me a meat sandwich.”

Go ahead and eat. Zhou Yu didn’t reply to him.

She changed clothes, turned off the air conditioning, put on sun protection sleeves, and rode the electric scooter back to the family residential building. She nearly died from the sun on the way, so she pulled over and messaged Sun Jingcheng: “Next time you ride the electric scooter to work…” After typing it out, she thought about it, decided against it, and deleted the content.

At the family residential building, Feng Yiqun was helping Grandma clean her lower body. Ten minutes earlier she’d used a glycerin suppository on her. She’d just had a bowel movement but accidentally got it on her bottom and the sheets.

Zhou Yu went over to help. Just as she was about to reach out, she saw a pile of filth on the tissue paper on the floor. Combined with the smell, she instinctively felt a bit nauseous. Feng Yiqun sent her to the bathroom to get warm water, then used wet wipes to clean Grandma thoroughly, half-supporting her body to pull out the sheets.

Then she cleaned up the filth on the floor, also removed the latex gloves on her hands, tied the bag closed, and carried it straight downstairs. When she came back up, she wiped Grandma’s body with a warm towel, applied talcum powder, and together with Zhou Yu put on fresh sheets.

After finishing all this, Feng Yiqun sat supporting her waist for a long while. Zhou Yu suggested finding a caregiver. Feng Yiqun said, “For your grandma’s condition, a caregiver would cost six or seven thousand. I’ll do it—I’m idle anyway.”

Zhou Yu said nothing more.

Feng Yiqun went to the bathroom with a brush to scrub the sheets. After scrubbing off the filth, she threw the sheets into the washing machine dedicated to Grandma.

Zhou Yu went to the kitchen to wash the lunch dishes. The living room was very tidy with nothing to clean up. She went to rinse the mop, preparing to mop the floor.

Feng Yiqun turned on the living room air conditioning and diluted disinfectant solution for her to use for mopping. She mopped every room once, waited about ten minutes, then mopped twice more with clean water. Feng Yiqun took the sheets from the washing machine. Zhou Yu went over to hold one end, and mother and daughter-in-law pulled hard together, then hung them on the balcony.

After finishing, Feng Yiqun went to rest. Zhou Yu sat on the sofa watching TV. After watching for a while, she turned off the air conditioning and turned on the fan on one side.

At six in the evening, Zhou Yu carried Grandma on her back downstairs for a walk as usual. This time she didn’t buy her anything to eat—just bought a bouquet of oriental lilies from the street vendor and returned. Coming back, she found the defecation hole on the nursing bed had been closed. Feng Yiqun said that wearing a diaper for Grandma was more comfortable than the hole—Grandma was too thin, the rim of the hole was too uncomfortable, and she kept trying to move her bottom away from it…

Zhou Yu found this amusing and glanced at Grandma. The old lady seemed to understand and suddenly smiled shyly like a young girl.

Dinner was simple. When returning to the new district, she first detoured to the clinic. Feng Yiqun put three cases of milk on her electric scooter’s footboard—all brought by neighbors visiting Grandma. There was too much. Feng Yiqun wanted her to bring it to the clinic for the children to drink.

Zhou Yu carried it upstairs and immediately ran into Yuyan, who hugged her leg tightly, looked up at her with a happy smile, jumped around in place while still hugging her leg, and said, “Little Aunt, I really, really like you!”

Zhou Yu was infected by his happiness. She squatted down and asked, “Do you really like Little Aunt?”

“Yes!” Sun Yuyan nodded hard and jumped up happily. “I really, really like Little Aunt!”

Eldest Sister-in-law also found it funny and asked him, “Why do you like Little Aunt?”

“I don’t know!” Sun Yuyan looked slightly bashful.

“Yuyan, do you like Auntie?” Sun Jingfei, sitting at the dining table, asked him.

“I like her! I really, really like Auntie!” Sun Yuyan happily ran a circle around the room.

…

Zhou Yu pinched his chubby face and couldn’t help kissing him. Who could not love children?

Sun Yuyan asked her, “Little Aunt, are you going to have a little sister?”

Zhou Yu laughed heartily and asked him back, “Do you think Little Aunt will have a little sister?”

“Yes! Little Aunt has a little sister in her belly.” Sun Yuyan cupped his face and giggled foolishly.

…

Mother Sun happened to hear this and was alarmed. She came over immediately and asked, “Are you pregnant?”

“I’m not—I just finished my period.”

Mother Sun was very mystical. She pulled Yuyan over and asked, “Yuyan, did you see a little sister in Little Aunt’s belly?”

“Little Aunt is holding a little sister…” After Sun Yuyan finished speaking, he arched his back like a little calf and charged into the inner room to play with his brothers.

Mother Sun was very certain, saying she would get pregnant soon and it would definitely be a girl. She said children sometimes have a “heavenly eye” and can see things adults can’t see. After saying this, regardless of whether they believed it or not, she continued with her tasks.

…

Zhou Yu sat for a little while, then remembering she needed to return to the new district to cook for Sun Jingcheng who was working overtime, got on the electric scooter and headed back. She was very happy on the way, passing rows of weeping willows, watching people walking beneath them, and couldn’t help laughing out loud.

The Sun family genes were too strong. So strong that Sun Jingcheng only had one great-aunt, one aunt, one older sister, and one niece. Four generations, and each generation had only one girl.

If she really got pregnant with a daughter, that would be wonderful!

Sun Jingfei finished eating at the dining table and remembered something important. She messaged Zhou Yu to pick up a package—she’d bought them a mopping machine. Sun Jingcheng had been nagging for several days, saying the one in the new district was completely broken. To keep Zhou Yu from discovering it was broken, he’d been hand-mopping the floor for several days.

Why did she have to buy it? He’d given a whole explanation. If he bought it himself, he’d definitely get scolded, but if she gave it as a gift, it would be different…

She was washing up in the kitchen when Mother Sun called from the bathroom, telling her to pour the basin of rice-washing water into the large beverage jug to ferment for watering the flowers later.

Too late—she’d already poured it. To avoid more talk, she said she’d just carried it out to water the flowers. Mother Sun scolded her for not understanding common sense. “I’ve been doing it this way for years—don’t you pay attention?”

“Just once—the flowers won’t die.” Sun Jingfei didn’t care.

Mother Sun was giving Sun Yuyan a bath and ignored her. Eldest Sister-in-law had gone to her and Big Brother’s house to sort through clothes. Now that the person was gone, there was no need to keep the clothes. Big Brother had been most warm-hearted in life—better to sort them out and give them away than leave them at the bottom of a trunk.

After washing up, Sun Jingfei glanced at the bathroom, quietly carried out a basin of water to water the flowers. After watering, she found the balcony flowers and plants attracted mosquitoes, so she found mosquito coils and lit them. Then leaning against the railing, she booked high-speed rail tickets for Ke Yu—he was planning to come back because Sun Yuyi was preparing to go to Yunnan with classmates.

After booking the tickets, she sent screenshots to Ke Yu, then idly gazed around and noticed the clothespins were full of socks—big ones, small ones, men’s, women’s. Among them were two pairs of white athletic socks she’d bought for Ke Yu earlier. Because they had holes at the top, he’d stopped wearing them, but now they all had little blue patches sewn on.

From these two pairs of socks, she suddenly thought of many things—how before marriage, her mother also liked to pick up her socks to wear; how old she was before the family finally paid back the money borrowed from relatives to buy the clinic’s upper and lower floors; how because they owed relatives money, her mother would take detours when she saw them from afar… She thought of many, many things that didn’t seem like much at the time but now seemed very heartbreaking.

As a child, she never felt their family’s days were hard. Whatever other kids at school had, the four siblings all had the same. School bags had to be the trendiest backpacks—they wouldn’t carry those labor cloth crossbody ones. Pencil cases also had to be changed every semester. In short, she never felt the family was poor, and she had no concept of poor or rich, because everyone ate, drank, carried, and used the same things.

They ate meat only a few times a year, but they didn’t crave meat—having snacks was enough. She remembered once going to a banquet where adults made snide remarks saying their family was “poor and showy”—in debt up to their necks, but the kids still went out looking all fancy. On the way home that day, Sun Jingcheng asked Mother what “poor and showy” meant. Mother Sun asked him where he’d heard it. He said at the flowing banquet. Then Mother Sun fell silent, not saying a word.

Thinking of this, she went to the master bedroom. Mother Sun had just finished bathing Sun Yuyan and told him to get milk from the box himself. Sun Yuyan grabbed one box in each hand, went to kick the door of another room, shouting for his brothers to open the door.

The children inside didn’t respond. He came back crying, saying his brothers wouldn’t play with him. Mother Sun slapped the door—everyone better open up right now, or I’m coming in to give each of you a beating. Inside they reluctantly opened the door. Mother Sun threatened them, “If you dare lock the door again, I’ll twist your heads off.”

…

After Mother Sun finished disciplining her grandsons, she went to wash up and apply face cream, then looked at Sun Jingfei behind her. “Why are you following me around?”

“I want to discuss something with you.” Sun Jingfei had never spoken to her mother so formally and intimately before.

Discuss—Sun Jingfei had never been so polite in speaking to her. She’d always been lawless, making her own decisions and acting first, reporting later. Dropping out of school was like that, getting pregnant before marriage was too. After doing something, just notify you and that was it.

Discuss—what a fresh, civilized, and harmonious word.